Paying Respects
by LindaO
Summary: So – the actors got into a little Twitter tiff about whose character had loved Joss Carter more, Donnelly (if he weren't dead) or Scarface. This crack!fic had to be written. Gallows humor. Seriously no disrespect intended. It's only funny if the coffin's empty. As I have not accepted Donnelly's death, so also do I reject Carter's. We need to laugh before we cry any more.


The gathering of mourners at Joss Carter's gravesite was massive and varied.

There were cops there, of course, lots of them, from the NYPD and from other departments, in uniforms and plainclothes. There were FBI agents, and even a handful of fireman. There were civilians; her family, her friends, her neighbors. There were a few family members of people whose murders she had solved, families she'd given some measure of peace. To the right of the gravesite, they sat in orderly rows in chairs. To the left, the overflow crowd stood.

The sun shone brightly, but it was bitterly cold. Mourners huddled in their overcoats, with their heads down, hands in their pockets.

Agent Donnelly arrived late. He'd been working a case, but there was no way in hell he was going to miss this funeral. As befit his status as a senior federal agent, he shouldered his way through the gathering on the left to the front row. Most gave way, grudgingly. But right in the front, a guy in a leather jacket refused to budge.

Donnelly bumped against his shoulder, shoving into the opening beside him. "Excuse me," he muttered.

The guy turned to look at him. He had dark hair and a long scar over his cheek and one eye. "Piss off," he muttered back.

"I'm a federal agent," Donnelly said quietly. "And this is my dear friend."

"Yeah, well then you should have been here on time," the guy whispered back.

"I was busy apprehending criminals." He looked the guy up and down. Who the hell wore leather to a funeral? It was nice leather, expensive-looking, but still.

"Whatever. She's my friend, and my boss's," the man with the scar snarled back. "Back off."

Donnelly shouldered him lightly to the side. "You back off."

"No, you back off!"

"Gentlemen," another man said quietly beside them. "Please."

They both looked. A well-dressed man with spiky hair and glasses was glaring at both of them. On the other side of him, Donnelly noted absently, was a stunning brunette.

He turned back toward the casket, chastened. The scarfaced man smirked at him, nodded to the man in glasses as if he knew him. Donnelly shrugged and listened to the minister for a moment. His eyes traveled to the front row of chairs. Carter's teenage son was sitting beside a tall man he'd never seen before. The long-lost ex, he presumed. The boy was absolutely stone-faced. Only the corners of his mouth twitched occasionally. He looked as if he were trying not to laugh, but Donnelly recognized that as a precursor to not crying.

The man with the scar shifted his feet and took a quarter step closer to the casket.

It was probably inadvertent, but the FBI agent shifted his own feet to match him.

Scar turned and looked at him. Then he shifted his feet again.

Donnelly shifted again, too. Now they were both half a step in front of the other mourners in the row.

Scar shifted his shoulders, bumping him, but making it look like an accident.

Donnelly bumped him back. He didn't try so hard to make it look accidental.

"Quit it," Scarface said in a stage whisper.

"You quit it," Donnelly snarled back.

The man bumped him with an elbow. Donnelly shifted his entire torso to bump him back.

Scar's hands came out of his pockets. "I'm warning you," he said quietly.

"Warn all you want, just back away from my friend."

"She's _my friend_!"

"Gentlemen!" the man in the glasses snapped. "This is a funeral, not a barroom brawl."

"It's gonna be a brawl if he doesn't back off," Scarface said.

Behind them, other mourners shifted and muttered. Scar took a deep breath and shoved his hands back in his pockets. Donnelly nodded stiffly and maintained his distance.

When the choir started singing, he leaned closer and whispered, "I don't know who you are, but I assure you, Detective Carter liked me better."

Scarface turned his head slowly. And then he exploded into motion, hands on Donnelly's coat, feet braced. The agent had expected it; his own hands came up to the man's leather – leather, really? – lapels, gripped and twisted. Scarface bent, but he didn't fall, and then he got his feet under him and shoved back …

There was a sound like lightning – lightning shouldn't make a sound, but that was all Donnelly could interpret – and then something bit him on the butt, and then he and the scarfaced man were falling and it was dark.

* * *

The choir finished, their voices trailing off on the last notes as they stared toward the disturbance.

Harold Finch sighed and stepped over the tangled legs of the fallen would-be combatants. The other mourners, without comment, filled in around him, so that the bodies on the ground were practically invisible.

In the front row on the other side of the coffin, Taylor Carter's face cracked into a wide smile. Finch shook his head sharply. The young man bent forward, his elbows on his knees and his face hidden in his hands. His shoulders hitched, his whole body wracked with convulsions of emotion. His father put one arm around him. The gathering murmured in sympathy for the young man so overcome. It was convincing enough.

Finch slipped his taser discretely into his overcoat pocket. On the other side, Zoe Morgan slipped her hand into his, slid her own bright pink taser from his fingers and put it into her own pocket.

The air around the grave still smelled like electricity.

He glanced down at the leather shoes tangled beside his feet. Detective Carter certainly did inspire uncharacteristic behavior in her admirers. He'd known that Elias' lieutenant was a passionate man, but he'd always been tightly controlled in his actions. Agent Donnelly was generally the very picture of decorum. But there they were, side by side, face-down on the frozen sod at the side of Carter's grave.

Well, grief affected everyone differently, he supposed.

Finch glanced at Taylor Carter. The boy was still doubled over to hide the fact that he was laughing uncontrollably. A little smile tugged at the corners of his own mouth, just for an instant, before he sternly controlled it again.

He reached into his pocket and touched his phone. When the memorial wrapped up, which would be very soon, and the crowd had moved away, he'd take a few pictures of the two. He was sure they'd give Joss Carter something to laugh at when he saw her later at the hospital. He was sure John would enjoy it, as well. It had been a rough few days for all of them. They needed a laugh. It was gallows humor, to be sure. But sometimes that was all there was left. It would do.


End file.
